Sermon Archive
Remembering Differently
Sermon preached by John McLuckie at Matins on 13 September 2002
'Remember what your ancestors did to my ancestors!? said a man to me at an otherwise civilised ecumenical gathering in Dumfriesshire. I presumed that by 'my ancestors' he was referring to Episcopalians but I didn't have the energy to explain that I didn't know of any Episcopalians in my family before 1987, nor did I have the cheek to voice my suspicion that if you shook his own family tree, some Jacobite would come tumbling down from some branch or other. Scots have famously long and unforgiving memories and there can be no doubt that we still have great challenges to face about our remembered past, not least as we address our ecumenical future and our sectarian present. The healing of memories is a major theme for our European, Scottish and British church life today and forms a part of the forthcoming Assembly of the Council of European Churches. However, an exhibition in the Portrait Gallery has made me think again about how we remember our past and how we begin the process of bringing healing to those memories.
Calum Colvin's ingenious photographs of sculptures and tableaux explore the dubious memories of a dubious figure of our Scottish past - the poet Ossian. The poetry of Ossian, the Gaelic Bard, was apparently collected and translated from its fragments by James Macpherson in the 1760s. He portrayed a popular image of a noble warrior-poet who gave romantic inspiration to a whole generation and even touched the heart of Napoleon Boneparte but the poems were almost certainly fakes. Colvin's Fragments of Ancient Poetry depict the unreliability of memories of figures like Ossian through series of images in which Ossian, Burns, Scott and Macpherson are shown gradually fading into the background of broken rocks or melting into other mythic figures like a Maori warrior and a Music Hall Jock. I find the images humorous and disturbing as well as strangely beautiful. They poke fun at some of our cherished Scottish icons but also present a bleak image of unreliable memories, faded dreams and thin foundations for a modern culture. Some of the images are depressing in their presentation of decay though some offer a powerfully elemental world of rock, shell and sand. Ultimately, I found the work hopeful in its creative use of the fragments and honest in its treatment of our complex past and our present founded on that past.
But does it have anything much to say to the healing of memories for our nation, our churches and our relationships? I think it does for a number of reasons. First, it does us good to think that our memories might be unreliable. So often we build rivalries and antipathies on the basis of remembered hurt and clear-cut positions carved out long ago in granite. We 'remember' the enemy, but not the ways we are very like our enemy. We 'remember' the slight, but not the blows that preceded and followed the defining incident. We 'remember' the strong positions, but not the shades of grey. Was my ancestor a collaborator, a patriot, a traitor, a hero, a pragmatist, someone who just kept his head low? Was he all of these things? Sometimes our historic pride is founded on very shaky premises. It's about time that some of them were shaken a little more or we might never leave them behind.
The same thing goes for our church traditions, our supposed cultural purity and, indeed our personal relationships. How often have we allowed painful memories to ruin a friendship even when those memories are partial and fragmentary? I'm not advocating a glossing-over of what has been done maliciously or a refusal to face real wrong-doing - we all know that no healing can occur within this kind of amnesia. What I am saying is that it may sometimes be possible to remember differently. Let me explain what I mean in the light of reading from Jeremiah.
The prophet outlines a future for Israel which marks a radical break with the past but draws on the wisdom and insights of that past. First of all, he tells us how God will break the cycle of punishment for the wrong done by the ancestors. From now on, one will be responsible for one's own wrongdoing, not one's forebear's. The next step is an extraordinary one; nothing less than the total rewriting of history. Not only will a new covenant be offered, it will one that is very different from the one that had until now been the bedrock of Israel's identity. That covenant has been broken and a new one is needed. This one will go straight to the heart of the people. It won't deal in legislation but conversion of heart. The arrangements of the past were godly, noble and defining. They also failed. Something new is needed and will be offered, in spite of all the rejection and failure. The final step is also remarkable. God chooses to remember the sin of the people no more. God chooses to remember differently. Only in this way can a new start be possible. At last, the past can be allowed to stay in the past and a new future can be built without the burden of failure, broken promises and corrupted identity.
As Christians, we see the same process in work in the forgiveness which forms the heart of the gospel. We may look on ourselves with loathing and the shame of our past wrong, but God chooses to remember us differently. We may look on others with the suspicion that comes from hard-won experience, but God may choose to remember their past differently. On the cross, God chose to forget our guilt and failure by taking it on himself. Remembered differently, our past need not imprison us.
Yet, you may say, there is much in that past that is good. Even the more shameful episodes of our past might still hold for us images of bravery, principle and faithfulness in the face of extreme danger. Are we also to remember this no more? Calum Colvin's exhibition might offer us some clues. To remember our past differently is not necessarily to lose it altogether. Its fragments may indeed offer the building blocks for something that is beautiful for now, even if we know it may not last into eternity. But we need not burden our present creativity with such unmanageable demands. The fragments of our memories can offer us challenging and inspiring pictures and we will be doing our forebears no disservice if we choose to rearrange those fragments a bit so that they make a sensible picture for today. It may even be that our ancestors will thank us for choosing to remember differently and not be imprisoned by the events of the past. And in our personal relationships, such a re-remembering may be just what we need to begin on the path to healing so that one day, with Jeremiah, we might see that the weary can be satisfied, the faint can be replenished, the sleep of the troubled can once again be pleasant.
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